CV-19 therapeutic drug trials and Vaccine

[_Jersey Girl]

We're averaging 20k but that's while averaging between 400,000 and 500,000 tests per day. When we were at the peak, we were averaging just 150,000 tests per day, which makes me wonder just how many people had it back then but weren't tested. It wouldn't surprise me if 100,000+ were getting it daily, we just had no way of knowing back in April.

The good news is that the death rate is dropping gradually.

The bad news is that the hot spots are beginning to shift. It used to be NY but now Massachusetts had 3,800 new cases yesterday, California, Alabama, Texas and Florida are getting much worse.

Colorado has slowly reduced over the past month in number of cases and deaths. As to NYC...I'm fairly confident they'll be back in the #1 position in a few weeks as a result of protests and it won't be pretty.

[_Jersey Girl]

Reporting in on my own trial using Losartan. If you recall, it's one of the front runners being trialed as a therapeutic for the virus. It is showing promise in thwarting the cytokine storm that plunges one into ARD (acute respirator distress) where folks end up on vents.

Three hours in. All I feel is a bit tired. Not fatigued. Not wiped out. Not exhausted like I felt on a beta blocker.

I feel like I could curl up under the covers and get a good night's sleep. Not morphine level warm fuzzy, but still a nice feeling.

That is all. And I read that this tiredness should pass after the first dose. We'll just see about that.

If some weird side effect comes up, will report it here. Doing this in case someone here or a loved one is confronted with the possibility of taking Losartan in case of Covid just wanting to share one person's account of what it's like.

[Guest]

We're averaging 20k but that's while averaging between 400,000 and 500,000 tests per day. When we were at the peak, we were averaging just 150,000 tests per day, which makes me wonder just how many people had it back then but weren't tested. It wouldn't surprise me if 100,000+ were getting it daily, we just had no way of knowing back in April.

The good news is that the death rate is dropping gradually.

The bad news is that the hot spots are beginning to shift. It used to be NY but now Massachusetts had 3,800 new cases yesterday, California, Alabama, Texas and Florida are getting much worse.

The number of newly confirmed coronavirus reported daily in California has not been decreasing significantly, and sometimes even rises from one day to the next. The number of daily tests in California has supposedly risen from a few thousands to tens of thousands, so any increase in the daily count of newly confirmed cases, probably does not accurately affect how fast is the actual increase in number of new cases daily or the actual number of currently active cases. I am having a hard time finding state wide statistics to confirm just how much the increasing number of daily tests skews the perception of how rapidly coronavirus is increasing.

According to the latest report by the bi-county health services department where I live, however, the total confirmed number of covid-19 cases in our my 2 county area since the beginning of the pandemic is 84, 9 of which are (or were) asymptomatic, a total of 3 deaths, a total of 12 have been hospitalized (including the 3 who died, of course), 4 are currently still hospitalized, and 68 have fully recovered. Thus, in the immediate region where I live, if we subtract the 3 deceased and the 68 recovered from the total confirmed cases, there are only 13 still active, confirmed cases of coronavirus left -- just 15.5% of the total confirmed cases so far, and this may or may not include some or all of the 9 originally reported as asymptomatic. If this holds true generally, nationwide, the total number of recovered cases is more than 5 times the number of those who are known to be currently infected. I guess we can take some encouragement from that.

[_Res Ipsa]

Sounds like hydrochloroquine Is down for the count. Next!

[_Jersey Girl]

Sounds like hydrochloroquine Is down for the count. Next!

Has it been officially sidelined? I haven't looked into it the past week or so because the virus has taken a back seat to social unrest.

[_Jersey Girl]

I was watching Dr. Fauci (was it last week or the week before?) where, if I understand him correctly, as they are trialing vaccines they plan to take the front runner (or more than one?) and begin producing it while they are still under trial so when the standout candidate emerges they'll be ready to deliver a vaccine on short notice.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Probably be a waste of some funds but a good trade off, I think, in order to begin delivery to the public. His short side estimate was that a vaccine (one or more?) would be ready to roll out sometime Jan 2021.

[_Chap]

Sounds like hydrochloroquine Is down for the count. Next!

Has it been officially sidelined? I haven't looked into it the past week or so because the virus has taken a back seat to social unrest.

Hydroxychloroquine does not cure Covid-19, say drug trial chiefs
Major study of thousands of patients led by University of Oxford shows drug is ineffective

Hydroxychloroquine does not work against Covid-19 and should not be given to any more hospital patients around the world, say the leaders of the biggest and best-designed trial of the drug, which experts will hope finally settle the question.

“If you are admitted to hospital, don’t take hydroxychloroquine,” said Martin Landray, deputy chief investigator of the Recovery trial and professor of medicine and epidemiology at Oxford University. “It doesn’t work.”

Many countries have permitted emergency use of the drug for Covid-19 patients in hospitals, following claims from a few doctors, including Didier Raoult in France, that it was a cure, and the ensuing clamour from the public. President Donald Trump backed the drug, saying it should be given to patients, and later said he was personally taking it to protect himself from the virus.

Landray said the hype should now stop. “It is being touted as a game-changer, a wonderful drug, a breakthrough. This is an incredibly important result, because worldwide we can stop using a drug that is useless.”

The first results from the Recovery trial, which has been testing seven therapies for Covid-19, swiftly followed the retraction of a paper in the Lancet medical journal on Thursday night claiming that hydroxychloroquine was linked to an increased risk of death in Covid-19 patients. The authors of the paper withdrew it after the US company Surgisphere refused to cooperate with an independent audit of the data it had supplied for the study. A Guardian investigation had showed serious errors in the data and raised questions about Surgisphere and its CEO.

Supporters of the drug hailed the paper’s retraction, but the World Health Organization and countries that have authorised use of the drug are now likely to change their position.

The Recovery trial is a “gold standard” randomised controlled trial, designed to find an answer to a question by recruiting patients in similar circumstances either to take the drug or to take a placebo. Their doctors and the researchers do not know which ones are taking the genuine trial drug.

Because of the furore over the Lancet paper, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency asked the trial’s independent monitoring board to look at the latest data. The board revealed the findings to the researchers, recommending that the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial should be stopped.

Since March, when the trial began, a total of 1,542 patients had been randomised to receive hydroxychloroquine, while 3,132 patients were randomised to receive only normal care. Over 28 days, 25.7% of patients on hydroxychloroquine died, compared with 23.5% of the others. The difference is not statistically significant – it could have arisen by chance. But the clear conclusion was that hydroxychloroquine did not work, said the researchers.

Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health at the University of Oxford, said they had informed the WHO, which had just restarted its hydroxychloroquine trials after pausing them because of the Lancet paper. That was an observational study – comparing patients in hospitals who happened to have been treated with the drug with others who had not.

“One of the key lessons we should learn historically is that making treatment decisions based on observational data is not the way forward,” he said.

[_Res Ipsa]

Sounds like hydrochloroquine Is down for the count. Next!

Has it been officially sidelined? I haven't looked into it the past week or so because the virus has taken a back seat to social unrest.

There are still trials running, but two new trials announced results in the last couple days — one on treatment of milder cases and one on prophylactic use. Both reported no effect. They appear to be high quality trials. As a practical matter, I think these studies, when combined with other evidence, reduces the odds the these drugs are safe and effective for COVID to something close to zero. If they were effective, we should have seen evidence by now.

[_Res Ipsa]

I was watching Dr. Fauci (was it last week or the week before?) where, if I understand him correctly, as they are trialing vaccines they plan to take the front runner (or more than one?) and begin producing it while they are still under trial so when the standout candidate emerges they'll be ready to deliver a vaccine on short notice.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Probably be a waste of some funds but a good trade off, I think, in order to begin delivery to the public. His short side estimate was that a vaccine (one or more?) would be ready to roll out sometime Jan 2021.

Yes, I think that’s the plan. Apparently, though, the five to be produced were picked without input from scientists. What could possibly go wrong? Personally, I don’t understand how adequate phase 3 trials get wrapped up by January.

[_Jersey Girl]

Yes, I think that’s the plan. Apparently, though, the five to be produced were picked without input from scientists. What could possibly go wrong? Personally, I don’t understand how adequate phase 3 trials get wrapped up by January.

:surprised:

You know what how in the world is Fauci essentially signing off on this then via his enthusiastic comments? I'm so lost it's not even funny. I need to leave the country and I can't do that without a vaccine.

I'm really ticked over here.